Talons A Plenty AKA The Stains of a Flowered Apron
by ermalope
Summary: After Malfoy drugs him, Harry unwittingly discovers a very important clue to a strange mystery that will permanently raise Ron and Hermione's eyebrows. Warning: OOCness, intended for comic effect. You be the judge.
1. The Creepish Phone Call AKA Violins

_Warnings: a tad of **randomness**, just a little **OOCness**, and inexplicably, several **phone calls at Hogwarts**. Brave these terrifying things at your peril. I own nothing, but I have eaten a vomit-flavoured Bertie Bott's bean. Of all the many Potterverse things I might have experienced, it had to be that. Sigh._

"RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING! RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING!" the phone rang.

Hermione gasped. Ron jumped.

"PHONE!" called Harry, who was curled up on the floor.

"Yeah thanks, Harry," snapped Hermione.

"Quick, let's creep towards the phone!" Harry suggested happily.

The trio crept towards the phone. Ron trod on Hermione's feet ("As usual," she had grimaced).

"Hang on a minute… there are no phones at Hogwarts! Phones don't even work at Hogwarts! What's going on here?" asked Hermione.

"SHHHHHHHHH!" Harry bellowed. "WE NEED ABSOLUTE SILENCE OVER HERE! SHUT UP!"

He stretched a shaking finger experimentally towards the phone. His hand inched closer and closer…

"HARRY!" Ron and Hermione complained together.

Harry lifted the receiver. "Heh–heh–heh–hello?" he whispered.

"Tell me all of your sssecretssss!" whispered a voice.

"Oh. Is this Voldemort?" Harry asked impatiently, losing all traces of fear. "I thought I told you to stop calling here!"

"Yo, Harry! Tell Voldie ma homie I say, 'Yo'!" boomed Aunt Marge.

All stared at Aunt Marge, who had been sitting in the corner curiously the entire time.

"Clearly the memory modification took a slight toll on her," Hermione mused.

"Thisssssssssss isssssssss not Voldemort," said the voice after a perplexed moment.

"Then who is it?" Harry asked, wrenching his gaze from Aunt Marge.

"Thissssssssss is -"

SLAM.

Harry had hung up the phone.

"What?" he asked as his friends stared at him.

Ron opened his mouth angrily, but before he could say anything Harry burst forth: "I have an idea! Let's have a _séance_ to find out who called us!"

Ron frowned and Hermione tsked. "Ummmm…" muttered Ron, "We were actually…"

"We have to go play our violins. We have a concert coming up," intervened quick-but-dim thinking Hermione.

"Oh, I see," Harry said airily. "Well, good luck with the practicing."

Once the sidekicks had gone off to who-knows-where, Harry stood. He glanced over at Aunt Marge, who glanced back.

"Well, I must be off." Harry told her in an ultimate business-like tone. "Ta ta."

"Bounce!" Aunt Marge agreed.

It was then that Harry decided to find someone to conduct a séance with. He wandered through the corridors, hoping to meet someone he knew… or recognized… Harry suddenly realized that he ignored most of the Hogwarts population.

Finally, he ran into Lavender and Neville. "Hi! I was looking for someone to – hey… why are you two together? Oh never mind, listen to this great idea I had." Harry went on to explain the strange phone call as Lavender and Neville slipped each other quite an odd sideways glance.

Eventually, Neville and Lavender agreeably ventured deep within the dungeons. Harry maintained that they needed a very creepy space to carry out a séance.

Harry set up for five minutes as Neville and Lavender watched. When Harry finally stepped back from his creation in triumph, Neville stared at him.

"Er – Harry, I don't think this'll work," he said feebly.

"Don't be silly, it's perfect!" exclaimed Harry.

Harry's brilliant séance creation consisted of three squat candles (all multi-coloured), a picnic blanket, a picture of a phone and a banana.

Reluctantly, Neville and Lavender sat down on the picnic blanket with Harry. The three of then joined hands and chanted, "Another one bites the dust. Another one bites the dust."

Nothing happened. Which was inevitable.

Harry seemed puzzled for a moment, and then burst out, "Hey, Ron and Hermione don't have violins!"

"Potter!" came a sharp, dangerous voice.

"Snape!" Harry replied, equally sharp but slightly gurgled.

"What are you doing in my dungeons? Is that a séance? Are you insane? Explain yourself!" Snape commanded.

"Well, you see," began Harry intelligently, but then there was only silence.

"No, Potter, I fail to 'see'," Snape muttered dangerously.

Just then, Ron and Hermione came running in. "We've got some great news!" gasped Hermione.

"Yeah, Harry, you've been drugged. Malfoy stuck some happy pills in your pumpkin juice at lunch. Neville, Trevor turned into a prince and Eloise Midgen's going out with him. Lavender, Seamus dumped you, he asked us to tell you, and Snape, Dumbledore spilled coffee all over your flowered apron." Ron said.

Snape burst into angry tears.

"I thought you said you had good news!" Harry exclaimed.

"We do! Hermione just switched to Geico and saved fifteen percent or more on car insurance," Ron said happily. Hermione beamed.


	2. A Missing Pamphlet AKA Dungeon Woes

_*Thanks to ma soeur, ata, for smashing through my fanficcers' block with a battering ram.*_

It was a dark and dreary morning in the Forbidden Forest. Harry suddenly wondered why he was in the forest. He shrugged and trudged on.

Being rather melancholy, he pulled evil faces at passing creatures... none of whom were much fussed over it.

He was then distracted from his stupidity by buzzing in his ear. He swatted in that direction, and slammed his fist into his cheek in the process. The fly buzzed on. Fuming, Harry and his stinging cheek pursued the fly. It went this way and that, and he struggled through the underbrush to get at it. Finally catching up, he mustered all his strength and slapped at it as hard as he could.

Unfortunately, the fly was too quick. Even more unfortunate was the fact that a centaur had been leisurely grazing in the fly's former position.

Harry gulped.

Ron and Hermione were notoriously going through their routine morning bout of sexual tension when Hedwig arrived. Tied to her leg was a letter, frantically scribbled:

_Dearest Ron and Hermione:_

_GET THE HELL OUT HERE TO THE FORBIDDEN FOREST! THE CENTAURS ARE GOING TO KILL ME! THEY'RE GONNA BURN ME ALIVE AND THEN EAT ME WITH PARSLEY AND KETCHUP! IT'S ALL IN THE PAMPHLET I INCLUDED! HELP ME! HEEEELP!_

_Regretfully,_

_Harry J. Potter_

"How on earth did he manage to write a letter and tie it to Hedwig if centaurs were planning to burn him alive?" Hermione sighed.

"I dunno," Ron began uneasily, "but we should go check it out. He could be telling the truth."

"Or Malfoy's happy pills have completely fried his brains," Hermione frowned.

"Fine," Ron snapped. "I'll go find him, and if he's all mangled ashes and the like, I'll never let you forget it."

"For goodness' sake." She rolled her eyes, and the pair ventured off to find him.

"What the hell are mangled ashes?" Dean asked once they had left. Neville and Seamus shrugged.

The sidekicks didn't have to travel far, for around the first corner they turned they found a glazed with sweat and terrified Harry dangling from a suit of armour.

Hermione glared at Ron, who looked away from her sheepishly to Harry.

"Centaurs?" they asked together.

"Yeah. Hagrid saved me, since you two were too busy." He thrust his nose up and folded his arms. "Playing your violins, I expect."

"Eating breakfast, actually," Ron said, smiling weakly. Harry continued to glare until Ron's smile faded.

"Guys –" Harry said suddenly, "where is that pamphlet I included?"

"Harry, there was no pamphlet," said Hermione sternly.

"WHAT?" bellowed he.

"Yeah, all we got was your letter," said Ron shooting Hermione another nervous glance.

"But, but, but… this can only mean one thing." Ron and Hermione stared at him. "And it's bad." They continued to stare. "It means that… my pamphlet may have fallen into the wrong hands!"

"Oh for the love of Jip-Jippity-Doo the Fourteenth, wife of Herald the Terribly Upbeat and Insatiable! Harry! Go see Madam Pomfrey and get those ridiculous pills out of your system!" Hermione shrieked.

"But _Hermione_! That pamphlet had all sorts of secret information on it, like Sirius's whereabouts, and the patterns on McGonagall's cat animagus, the working schedules of everyone at the Order who's a ministry employee, names, birthdates, family trees, bank records, and surveillance photos!"

"WHY would you put all of that in a pamphlet if Centaurs were about to murder you?" Hermione screamed as Ron looked on incredulously.

"Because it seemed like a brilliant idea!" Harry yelled back.

"Okay, well, I guess we should go look for that pamphlet," Ron suggested nervously as Hermione and Harry fumed silently at each other.

_Elsewhere in the Palace… I mean Castle… Why can't it be a Palace once in a while?_

Snape paced in his dungeon office. "I hate this office," he muttered mutinously as he paced. "It's so dungeony. You might say that I'm accustomed to dungeons and grease and cold and unfeelingness, but that doesn't mean that I don't feel secret pangs for squashy red armchairs by the fire! And enough with these pickled slimy things! I want fluffy teddy bears and bunnies from now on!"

He sat down angrily. Snape is good at emanating anger even when doing something as normal as sitting down, didn'tcha know?

"WHAT IS THAT?" He shrieked suddenly, staring up at one of the bottles directly above his desk chair. "It's not even a friggin' potion ingredient! Is that an inside-out frog? WHO THE HELL BOUGHT ALL OF THIS CRAP? IS IT SUPPOSED TO BE DECORATIVE OR SOMETHING? GOD!"

The phone chose that precise moment to ring.

Snape stared at it as if it was somehow responsible for being completely out of place and badly timed. Which it was not, even though I wrote that it chose a moment to ring. It didn't. It's a phone. Phones don't make choices. People make choices. And then they write things that don't make sense and don't bother to go back and fix them. In any case, Snape answered it.

"What?" he said irritably, but his face still betrayed a good deal of confusion.

"Close your eyes. Now picture yourself somewhere… anywhere, doing whatever you want to Bathilda Bagshot."

"As tempting as _that_ sounds, no," Snape replied.

"But its good fun!" retorted the mysterious voice.

"Yeah. Well. How is it that you're calling me on a muggle phone when I'm in Hogwarts Palace?" asked Snape darkly.

"Well. How is it that I have your favourite flowered apron?"

"WHAT? You FIEND! Give me back my apron or so help me…."

"I'm DYING to find out what you'll do. Ta ta for now, Snapesickle." The line went dead.

Snape threw back his head and bellowed with all the fury felt by man and beast ever in all of eternity. Yeah.

* * *

_I *think* that the line "It's all in this pamphlet" is from an episode of Family Guy I watched way back when._


	3. One Squashy Armchair AKA The End

And as the thestrals spread their leathery wings and took to the skies, Harry, Ron, and Hermione sighed in despair.

"Where could my very important pamphlet be?" asked Harry as the trio searched the Charms classroom from top to bottom.

"Why don't you think about the last place you'd look, because you know, you always find lost things in the last place you look," Ron suggested.

"Ron, go sit in a corner," snapped Hermione.

Ron's lip trembled. "Hermione, that was… uncalled for." He put one hand over his eyes and sunk into a desk chair.

Harry glared at Hermione. "Now look what you've done!"

Hermione sighed and sat next to Ron. "I'm sorry. I'm just frustrated, because that pamphlet is really important and it's just… gone."

"Yeah, Hermione," said Harry, glaring even more furiously.

Ron and Hermione stared at him.

"Harry, _you_ lost the pamphlet. _And _you made it in the first place, for no discernable reason," Ron told him as Hermione rolled her eyes.

"Oh, fine, blame everything on me, everything's always my fault, isn't it? I don't suppose either of you have ever made a mistake? Oh no, you're perfect, violin-playing sidekicks and neither of you would ever do anything even a little bit less than magnificent. Well, fine. You go find that pamphlet without me, you can forget about me helping you anymore."

With that, he stormed out of the Charms classroom. When he tried to slam the door it just bounced merrily back open, emitting bubbles. This seemed to infuriate him even more, because he slammed right into the wall as he left.

"Hermione, if I hexed him, would you rat me out to McGonagall?"

"Probably. Yes. I wouldn't be able to help myself."

"Okay. If I hexed Malfoy, would you rat me out to McGonagall?"

"Oh, absolutely not. Let's go do that."

* * *

Professor Snape was reclining in the comfiest chair in the Gryffindor common room, yes, indeed, the one right next to the fire. Lee Jordan stood foremost among the students clamouring to get a look.

"What is he doing?" whispered Alicia Spinnet.

"God knows," muttered Lee.

"This is too bizarre," said a curly-haired girl in fourth year.

Fred and George, ever paternal, patted a first year boy on the head as he sobbed with uncontrollable horror. "There, there, he'll leave eventually."

"Maybe."

"I'm going to ask him."

"No, Lavender!"

"It's too dangerous!"

"You have so much life ahead of you!"

"Don't do it!"

But Lavender's face was set. She looked at Fred and George questioningly.

Fred shrugged as he re-tied the crying first year's tie around his head in what he must have thought was a comforting gesture. George said, "Your funeral."

Lavender took a deep breath, stepped in front of Lee and mumbled, "Er… Professor?"

Snape didn't stir.

She took another step. Parvati bit her nails. Colin held his breath.

"Professor?"

Snape's eyes were closed, and his head was thrown casually back over the head of the chair where it rested against the wall. He was clearly breathing, but he made no notice of Lavender or the hundreds of Gryffindor students who stared at him.

Lavender gritted her teeth and closed the distance. She prodded him in the shoulder and said, "Professor, what are you doing here?"

Snape leapt up with a yelp, and several students shrieked. Cormac McLaggen fainted.

"What the devil is going on here?" Snape snarled.

"Uhhhm, well…" Lavender had gone white, but she stood her ground. "That's kind of what we were wondering, Professor."

Snape glared around at all of the students assembled. They stared back, wide-eyed and fearful.

Snape sighed.

Some of the students chanced perplexed glances at each other.

"Kids… let me explain something to you." Snape sat back down. Now all of the students (with the exception of McLaggen) were staring at each other.

"Sometimes… people decide for you… that you… what you are, what you'll be… and it's really hard to change it because you think, hey, if mum was a Slytherin maybe she'll love me if I'm a Slytherin too, and hey, if everyone else hates me but those guys think I'm swell maybe I will be a Death Eater, and then you wake up one day and you haven't had a shower in twenty years and everything you've ever loved is just… gone. And it's all your fault, because you never realized that the only person who ever had control over your life… was you."

There was silence in the Gryffindor common room that day.

Until Lavender said, "What… er… what?"

Snape glared at her for a moment, but then leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes again. "What I'm saying is… I really want to sit in a squashy armchair for once. God."

Lee's jaw was on the floor. Fred and George seemed to have finally been left speechless. Alicia's lip was trembling and she held her heart. Colin's eyes were the size of dinner plates. Lavender looked around at her fellow Gryffindors, utterly bemused. They shrugged frantically at her (it's possible to shrug frantically if you're a Gryffindor and Snape just poured his innermost feelings out to you).

"Um, well, Professor… don't they have squashy armchairs in the teacher's lounge?"

Snape opened his eyes. "They all smell of mustard."

Nobody could think of anything to say to that.

Snape sighed once more, and then smacked his head repeatedly against the wall behind his chair.

The Gryffindor students stared at each other, gobsmacked to a man. And all at once, they grinned at each other.

"Professor? We have an idea."

* * *

Ron and Hermione found Harry moping in the kitchens with Winky after a productive and entertaining afternoon of hexing Malfoy with various maladies from various hiding places. Mean? Yes. Cowardly? Yes.

…

Well, Malfoy had made their lives miserable just because he wanted to see Harry make a fool out of himself. It was a horrible plan, not to mention lacking in cleverness or originality. Ron and Hermione considered themselves and Harry completely even with Malfoy, and afterwards they left him alone.

They now stared down at Harry, who sat, legs sprawled in front of him, countless bottles of Professor Trelawney's favourite cooking sherry and butterbeer scattered about. He and Winky were hiccupping simultaneously and trying and failing to sing "Oh Woe is Me and My Accromantula." The other house elves were staring at both of them in immense confusion.

"Harry?" Hermione asked tremulously after a moment.

"What do you two _hic _want?" Harry asked.

"We… we thought of a way to find the pamphlet." Hermione looked at Ron for help.

He said, "It was a bit obvious, but better late than never, I guess." He raised his wand and said, "Accio pamphlet!"

The pamphlet zoomed out of Harry's pocket into Ron's outstretched hand.

"Harry, you already found it?" asked Hermione, staring at the thickly folded piece of paper.

"_Hic…_ er…" said Harry.

"Merlin's pants," muttered Hermione. Ron stared at her. "Harry, have you had that the whole time?"

"It would _hic_ seem that way," Harry slurred.

Hermione threw her hands up in defeat and sat down hard. Ron asked the house elves for a soy latté.

"Oh woooooe is me and my accromantula,

We've sailed the seven seas,

But everyone we meet on her,

Is terrified as you pleeze,

Because my accromantula is hungry,

And he tries to eat them so,

They get all prissy and they start to scream,

Especially when he tells them his name is Joe," warbled Winky and Harry.

"This is the worst song ever written. The meter is all off," Hermione complained. Ron sipped his latté and shrugged.

"Oh woooe, oh woooe, oh woooe is me and my accromantula,

Who, under better circumstances prefers to go

By the distinguished and terrifying name of Joe."

* * *

Snape lowered himself gingerly into his own Gryffindor-brand squashy red armchair. The students gathered about him in his newly decorated office, breaths held. Only when Snape was fully seated did they burst into applause.

* * *

Harry, Ron, and Hermione got back to their common room later that night. It was completely empty except for Cormac McLaggen who was sprawled out on the floor. He woke up as they stepped into the common room and said, "What'd I miss?"

The trio ignored him, but exclaimed over the missing armchair that had somehow disappeared from beside the fire.

Harry suddenly turned to the other two. "Ron, Hermione – I think I've just understood something!"

Ron and Hermione looked at each other with trepidation.

"That voice on the phone! I know who it was!"

"Who?" they said together.

"Follow me!"

Without offering any more explanation, Harry dashed from the common room with Ron, Hermione, and McLaggen in hot pursuit.

Harry took a sharp right at Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. She squealed happily when she saw him, but he just ran right through her. Ron, Hermione, and McLaggen followed a little more slowly.

"Harry? Are you… sure about this?"

But Harry wasn't listening. "_Open_," he said to the little snake etched in the sink.

It wasn't much longer before Harry, Ron, Hermione, McLaggen, and Moaning Myrtle were in the Chamber of Secrets, marching straight towards the lair of the dead Basilisk.

Ron and Hermione clutched each other like… the Hand of Glory. Yup. McLaggen held Myrtle's hand, shuddering the whole time.

But Harry walked right in and shouted, "Oy! Mr. Basilisk! You home?"

"Harry, you killed the Basilisk in second year!" squeaked Hermione.

But Harry wasn't listening.

"Okay, everyone. Close your eyes! You too, Myrtle!"

"Harry, I'm confused. What is it you're expecting to find down here besides a dead Basilisk?" Ron was asking angrily. Harry bumped into a few walls, ignored Ron, and tripped over the dead Basilisk.

"Wow. That hurt," Harry muttered.

"Harry, the Basilisk is dead, okay? Can we go now?" Hermione whispered.

"WHAT? But I was so sure that it was the Basilisk who called me on the telephone."

Ron, Hermione, McLaggen, Moaning Myrtle, and now a puffing, furious Filch stared at Harry.

Hermione finally broke the silence.

"Harry, do you mean to tell us that… that you're… _surprised_, that it wasn't this Basilisk who called you on the phone?"

"Yes," Harry said slowly, as if she was very stupid for not realizing this.

* * *

When Harry, Ron, Hermione, and McLaggen returned to the common room, tired, aching, and irritated, but without detention, because Filch was just grateful to get out of the Chamber of Secrets without having to clean it, they found the rest of the Gryffindors back in their common room.

"Where have you been?" asked Ginny.

Hermione growled in response.

"I was so sure that it was the Basilisk who called me!" Harry said again, causing Hermione to storm off to her dormitory.

"Oh, we know who called you, Harry," said Ginny.

"You do? Who was it?"

"It was Peeves. He disguised himself as a phone. He did it to Snape, too," explained George as Harry and Ron sat with him, Fred, and Ginny.

"Oh. Well then."

"Harry, you'd better go to Madam Pomfrey in the morning or Hermione will probably explode," Ron muttered.

"Oh, _fine_," Harry sighed.

"Ahh, Harry's much more fun like this. Sing for us, Potter!" yelled Fred.

"Oh woooe is me and my Accromantula,

Because when we're together he,

Far worse than any wing man,

Charms the ladies more than me.

He sips his tea with his eighth leg sticking out

And when he's done he'll say,

"'Twasn't me what caught you up

"But it probably was my web."

"Hey wait, that doesn't rhyme!"

They squeal, a-flutter and a-flirtin',

And he'll smile big and wear a wig,

And kill them and drink their fluids."

OH WOE IS ME AND OH WOE IS MY ACCROMANTULA!"

Even Hermione came back into the common room and listened with one eyebrow cocked.

* * *

The next day Harry was so embarrassed that he locked himself in the Room of Requirement with Winky and Moaning Myrtle and the three of them sobbed uncontrollably together.


End file.
